484' BOTANICAL LETTERS FROM ARGYLESHIRE. \_April, 



treme distance on the brown hills of Antrim, with the coast- 

 line from beyond Rathlin down below Belfast, as well as the Scotch 

 coast of Galloway and Wigtonshires, the Irish Sea and North 

 Channel, and the extremity of the Firth of Clyde, where Ailsa's 

 lone craig sits in solitary grandeur, lashed by the ocean waves. 

 Numbers of ships, with their snowy sails, are boated outwards 

 and inwards, with several large steamers, one of which he recog- 

 nizes as the ' St. Andrew,' North American steamer, passing up 

 the Sound of Sunda for Glasgow. Among the hills and valleys 

 more immediately beneath him, he hears the joyous sounds of 

 rural labour and rustic toil. Sheep are browsing around him, 

 and a covey of birds hastens past, intent on escaping the sports- 

 man's rifle, now and again heard sounding from glen, heath, and 

 corrie, — perhaps the first and public day of the sportsman, the 

 memorable 12th ; but what are they all, compared to that beau- 

 tiful bird the lark, whose song, as it ascends and descends over 

 that bog, rivets to the spot ? 



The spring is reached. There it is, an oblong orifice, some- 

 thing about three feet by two wide, in the face of that grey rock, 

 shaded by Heath, its sides and roof green, beautifully green, by 

 an embroidery of nature's workmanship, clad with one or two 

 Bryums, Marchantia, and Chrysosplenium, while a small eye of 

 pure clear water flows on continuously. 



" Tlie mountain air 

 In winter is not clearer, nor the dew 

 That shines on mountain blossoms." 



Cold as ice, clear as the pui^est crystal, there it rolls out con- 

 tinuously into a small basin-like cavity with pebbly bottom, a 

 blessing to the wandering naturalist, or whoever may chance to 

 tread afar on this distant mountain-top, — never dry, ever cold, 

 and refreshing summer and winter. No stagnation is here. The 

 water rises to its level, and the water flows onwards, trickling 

 down the brae, or inclined, if you please, in form of a fan, spread- 

 ing as it reaches a bog some thirty yards distant ; while every 

 inch of the ground over which this waste water spreads, is ever 

 in one mass of verdure. 



Oar friend, buckling on again, commences to search in its 

 tract on to the bog, where he meets Veronica Beccabunga and 

 Watercress in great profusion; Cardamiae, Polygala, Polytrichum, 

 Sphagnum, Hydrocotyle, and as he reaches the little bog, Nar- 



